The short answer
Once. The Mona Lisa has been stolen one time: on 21 August 1911, when Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre glazier, took it off the wall and walked out. Every incident since has been an attack or a protest, and none of them removed the painting from the building.
The number "several" comes from counting all of those together. It is a fair thing to count, though the answer changes with the definition. If you only need the count for a caption or a quiz, "once" is right, and "stolen once, with six later incidents" is the fuller version. The attack count is where numbers wobble: NPR counted five by 2022, the 2024 soup makes six, and the razor-blade case would make seven. The table further down sorts every incident I could source into what happened, whether the painting left the wall, and where the accounts disagree.
The one real theft, 1911 to 1914
Peruggia entered the Louvre on Monday 21 August 1911 in a white smock like the ones staff wore, according to his own later account in Florence. The painter Louis Béroud reported the panel missing the next day. The museum shut for a week, and at least 60 police officers searched the building. The officer in charge said the investigation would take two or three days; it took more than two years. Police questioned the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who was arrested, and he named his friend Pablo Picasso, who was also questioned. Both were cleared.
Peruggia had helped build the painting's glass case, and he left a thumbprint on the glass. Peruggia was an Italian decorator, born in 1881, who had briefly worked at the Louvre as a glazier. He kept the panel in his apartment for about two years. In December 1913 he tried to sell it in Florence, where Giovanni Poggi, the director of the Uffizi, authenticated it. Police arrested Peruggia at his hotel on 12 December 1913.
The painting hung in the Uffizi for a little over two weeks before returning to the Louvre on 4 January 1914, according to Wikipedia's Mona Lisa article. Wikipedia describes Peruggia as an Italian patriot who believed the painting belonged in an Italian museum. He served a short sentence, was hailed as a patriot in Italy, and later served in the Italian army in the First World War, where Austria-Hungary captured him and held him as a prisoner of war for two years.
Another account followed. In 1932 the journalist Karl Decker published a claim that a man named Eduardo de Valfierno had masterminded the theft to sell forged copies in America. Wikipedia describes this as an alleged account, and Peruggia's own page says Decker heard it from Valfierno in 1913 and that the theory has no external confirmation. I leave it out of the count.
Why people say it was stolen more than once
Three things get mixed into the count. The first is 1956, when The Week and NPR describe an acid attack alongside the rock. The second is a razor-blade incident from a few years before that. Wikipedia says a man who claimed to be in love with the painting cut it with a razor and tried to steal it, while The Week, citing ARTnews, says someone tried and failed to use a razor to damage it. Wikipedia places it a few years before 1956, while The Week lists it among the 1956 attacks. Neither gives a full date, so I would not count it as a second theft.
The third is the 2025 Louvre robbery. On 19 October 2025 thieves disguised as construction workers took eight pieces of the French crown jewels, valued at about €88 million, from the Apollo Gallery in under eight minutes. Wikipedia says the most recent art theft from the Louvre before it was a Corot painting, Le chemin de Sèvres, in 1998. The Mona Lisa was not involved, but the headlines put the Louvre and a famous theft together, and a search for that story can land on the painting.
Every incident, sorted
I built this from the Wikipedia article on the painting, The Week's timeline (which draws on ARTnews) and NPR's 2022 segment with the art historian Cammy Brothers. The last column shows where those sources give different details.
| Date | What happened | Did it leave the wall? | Damage | Where sources differ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Aug 1911 | Taken from the Salon Carré by Vincenzo Peruggia | Yes, for more than two years | None recorded | Sentence length: 6 or 7 months served |
| Before 1956, or in 1956 (sources differ) | A man goes at the painting with a razor blade | Disputed | Not clear | Date, and whether he meant to steal it or damage it |
| 1956 (The Week, NPR) | Acid thrown at the painting, in Montauban according to The Week | No | No damage stated in the sources I read | Wikipedia does not mention it; NPR says it is why the painting sits behind glass |
| 30 Dec 1956 | Rock thrown at the case at the Louvre | No | Case shattered, a speck of pigment lost near the left elbow | Attacker's name spelling |
| 21 Apr 1974 | Red paint sprayed in Tokyo | No | None | Whether it hit the glass or the panel |
| 2 Aug 2009 | Ceramic cup thrown at the glass | No | None | Teacup, mug or coffee |
| 29 May 2022 | Cake smeared on the glass | No | None | None that I found |
| 28 Jan 2024 | Soup thrown at the glass | No | None | None that I found |
NPR's 2022 segment called the cake the fifth attack in 60 years. NPR does not itemise them in what I could read, but acid, rock, paint, cup and cake gives five, and the 2024 soup makes six. According to Wikipedia, Salvador Dalí wrote an essay titled "Why they attack the Mona Lisa" after the 1956 rock attack.
| If you count... | Number | Which incidents |
|---|---|---|
| Thefts | 1 | 21 August 1911 |
| Times it left the wall | 1 | The 1911 theft |
| Times damage is documented in these sources | 1 | 30 December 1956 rock, a speck of pigment near the left elbow |
| Attacks on the painting or its glass since 1956 | 6 | Acid, rock, paint, cup, cake, soup |
| Attempts on the painting before 1956 | 0 or 1 | The razor-blade case, if you accept it as an attempt |
Read by category, the ledger has one theft, one documented case of damage (the 1956 rock), and five other incidents with no damage stated: acid, paint, cup, cake and soup. The acid attack has only passing coverage in NPR and The Week.
Times it left the wall without being stolen
If a source says the painting "went missing" or "was taken" more than once, check whether it means a planned move. Wikipedia lists several. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 the painting was moved from the Louvre to the Brest Arsenal. On 28 August 1939, shortly before the Second World War began, it was taken out of the Louvre and sent first to the Château d'Amboise, then to Loc-Dieu Abbey and the Château de Chambord, and finally to the Musée Ingres in Montauban, which kept it from the paintings looted by Nazi Germany.
Since the 1990s the painting has also been moved for renovations three times: 1992 to 1995, 2001 to 2005 and 2019. Each of these was an official relocation, and the painting was never out of the museum's hands. The Louvre has had thefts. This painting has had one.
A short test works for any claim of this kind. Ask whether the object physically left the building without permission, whether anyone was caught with it, and whether the source names a date. Only the 1911 event passes all three.
Where the accounts disagree
The accounts differ in small ways that are easy to miss, so here are the ones I found.
Peruggia's sentence is one example. Wikipedia's Mona Lisa article says he served six months. His own Wikipedia page says he was sentenced to one year and 15 days and served seven months on appeal. The 2009 object is another: Wikipedia and The Week say a teacup, NPR's guest says a mug and hot coffee. Both Wikipedia and The Week agree on the attacker: a Russian woman upset over being denied French citizenship.
The 1956 events are muddier. NPR says the acid attack is why the painting is behind glass today. Wikipedia says glass was already there because of the earlier razor incident, and that the December rock shattered it. The attacker of 30 December is called Ugo Ungaza Villegas on Wikipedia and Hugo Unjaga Villegas in The Week.
None of this changes the headline count. When I cite a detail from these accounts, I use the wording the sources share and say where they split.
What changed after each incident
The 1956 rock is the turning point for protection. Wikipedia says bulletproof glass has shielded the painting since that attack, and in all later cases it was undamaged. The 1974 paint left no damage, and the 2009 cup, the 2022 cake and the 2024 soup ended on the glass.
In April 2005 the painting moved to a purpose-built, climate-controlled enclosure behind bulletproof glass in the Salle des États. Wikipedia also reports that in 2024 it was decided to move the panel to a separate room with its own entrance.
For the 1911 story in more depth, including why the theft did not make the painting famous the way people say it did, see the Mona Lisa article.
